Software that will let people and robots communicate to plan difficult and complex tasks, such as dismantling a nuclear power plant, is being developed at a Scottish university. (Source: Wikimedia Commons/Stefan Kühn)

Mydesign, I think the intent here regarding nuclear power plants refers to the robots used in dealing with the most radioactive parts. You might recall that in the Fukushima situation some robots from the US were sent in to check the affected areas so that humans would not have to. These robots carried cameras and sensors for that task.

Typically researchers will mention high value situations like this. If it works, though, the real money is always in high volume. The real payday on something like this is the cell phone market.

Ann, what's the need of software to dismantle the nuclear power plant. I know the importance of human robot communication, but I think the developments has to be happen in other directions like disaster management and rescue operations.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

Kaspersky Labs indicated at its February meeting that cyber attacks are far more sophisticated than previous thought. It turns out even air-gapping (disconnecting computers from the Internet to protect against cyber intrusion) isn’t a foolproof way to avoid getting hacked. And Kaspersky implied the NSA is the smartest attacker.

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